


Every Kiss Gets A Little Sweeter

by hariboo



Category: Sailor Moon - All Media Types
Genre: Curtain Fic, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-13
Updated: 2013-12-13
Packaged: 2018-01-04 11:48:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1080660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hariboo/pseuds/hariboo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s something comforting about it; this knowledge that they are on the same page, finally, and they both don’t mind that some of edges are a bit bent and burnt. Justin says it gives them character, Rei scoffs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Kiss Gets A Little Sweeter

**Author's Note:**

> another advent calendar fic, for ANOTHER ANON~

It actually takes their friends about three weeks to realise they’ve started talking. Probably talking, and not just being polite for Usagi and Mamoru’s sake, because they don’t stop fighting. They just stop _fighting_. There’s a distinction. Rei is sure. At least there is to them. Usagi still doesn’t understand why they bicker so much, but Rei just reminds her of her early days with Mamoru and even now they keep their bickering, even if now it’s less pointed and more sweet. Rei’s never been that sweet. Justin isn’t either. 

She likes that about him. 

After that, it’s weirdly easy between them. Even between the arguments and the stuff they invariably get wrong at first as they try to relearn each other they lose the meanness. The spite. They won’t ever be the sweet, kind, careful ones. They aren’t built that way. Rei is fire and Justin, well, she considers him smoke. Just as deadly, just as intense and overpowering, but he’s also lighter. Ephemeral in his nature, his temperament quick and brash as her own, his anger a cooler one, but he’s faster to work through his feelings. 

Maybe what he and other boys went through makes them quicker to understand forgiveness. 

Rei isn’t like that. She doesn’t think she’ll ever be.

And her forgiveness takes them both work, constant work, because she knows the words to throw at him at her angriest. And he’s just as apt at throwing his own words back. It’s become not about them being nicer, but kinder. There is also a difference.

Still, even then, it’s easy.

They wouldn’t be them without their edge.

And she likes their edge.

There’s something comforting about it; this knowledge that they are on the same page, finally, and they both don’t mind that some of edges are a bit bent and burnt. Justin says it gives them character, Rei scoffs. 

It works for them.

Which is why he moves into the temple, much like when they stopped avoiding each other, much like when they started talking, started getting back into the nooks and crannies of each other’s lives, the others don’t notice for about a month. But that’s not the important part. 

This is the important part:

His schedule at the hospital is even fuller than Mamoru’s and he’s been staying with her a lot. He says because the temple is closer, which is true, but they both know that’s not the reason. And her grandfather loves him even when he looks at him and asks if he’s ever been by before. But Rei distracts those questions. Some questions it’s better that Ojisan doesn’t know the whole answer to. 

It’s cute, if annoying. 

Mostly she finds, or found it, annoying how cute she realised he could be. But she likes it, having him around. She never thought she would, but he’s like smoke in the temple. His presence wafting around her, never heavy and dark, not unless he means it to be. He’s like incense and the transition of him into her home happens so quietly and easily, so unlike everything thing about them.

They’re sitting at breakfast one morning. He’s taken to help her with the morning chores as to let her grandfather sleep in. He’s pouring the tea like she’s taught him and she throws her legs into his lap, comfortably. By her nature she never runs cold, but she likes how he cups her small feet in his hands, rubbing his thumb against her insole. He’s telling her about the hospital, how the apartment he shares with the other three feels smaller by the day since Mina has practically moved in and Makoto, too, if only on weekends. He goes on telling her about a patient he had the other day and that he really does need to get a bike or a car when she interrupts him.

“You should stay here,” she says, surprising herself. His thumb stops.

He’s not the type to pretend he doesn’t know what she’s talking about. 

“Are you sure?”

He’s also not the type to jump head first into things.

Honestly, she’s surprised at herself, but she is. She is sure. She’s never minded and even enjoys the solitude of the temple, but there’s something nice about having him around. He fits into the soft shadows of the temple in a way she didn’t expect with his gajin hair and heavy feet and 80s rock music. But he’s like smoke, different than that of the Great Fire’s, thicker, like incense and she like it.

“Yes.”

When Justin really smiles, wide and honest, not a smirk, not a careful curl of his lip, she think that’s when she loves his face the most. She still has bad memories of his face, but never once in them does he smile at her like this. She leans in and kisses that smile. 

“You know I like you here, I wouldn’t let you stay over as much otherwise. Grandpa likes you here, and,” she pauses, takes a sip of her tea and looks at him through her lashes, “you like being here, don’t you?”

Justin chuckles and leans his, pushing a thick strand of hair that’s escaped her braid back over her shoulder. He brushes her cheek with his lips and cups her face, turning her to him. Rei puts her cup down and grins up at him.

“What do you think?”

His mouth is warm and she likes how he tastes of coffee. She open under his lips and kisses back until he pulls back and rests their foreheads together. “I do like it here. I’ll start bringing my stuff today after work.” He grins, “You’re my hero, you know. The apartment is getting ridiculous.”

She brushes her fingers against his jaw and nods. “Good.” A second later she smirks, “So how long do you think it will take them to notice we’re living together?”

Justin laughs as he picks up his coffee again. Rei licks her lips. 

“Knowing them, they might not ever.”

Rei shrugs. “Oh, come on, I give them a month.Mina will definitely notice. So will”

Justin cocks his eyebrow at her. “Care to make a wager?”

She grins. She really does love having him around. Also, in the end, she wins and he has to sweep up the temple for a month.

Living together is a lot more fun than Rei ever thought it could be.


End file.
